Commissioner for Human Rights

Too few opinion leaders and leading politicians across Europe have taken a firm stand against homophobic and transphobic expressions, discrimination and violence. The Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights, Thomas Hammarberg, has therefore put the human rights of LGBT persons and the fight against discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity firmly on his agenda.
 
The Commissioner regularly raises transgender issues with authorities in member states, and has expressed his concerns in country monitoring reports and specific thematic publications, such as the Issue Paper on Human Rights and Gender Identity which is available at: https://wcd.coe.int/wcd/ViewDoc.jsp?id=1476365 

On 23 June 2011 the Commissioner launched a detailed report on “Discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity in Europe”, covering all the 47 member states of the Council of Europe. The study relied upon input from national experts and authorities in the member states, national human rights structures, NGOs, international organisations and many others. It involved intensive cooperation with the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), which kindly shared its research and data on the 27 member states of the European Union. 

In addition, independent national experts or consultants prepared a legal report and a sociological/social report for each Council of Europe member state and access to all these country-specific reports are available at:
http://www.coe.int/t/commissioner/activities/Themes/LGBT/nationalreports_en.asp

The UK legal report can be downloaded directly from:
http://fra.europa.eu/fraWebsite/attachments/LGBT-2010_thematic-study_UK.pdf
The UK sociological report can be downloaded directly from:
http://fra.europa.eu/fraWebsite/attachments/FRA-hdgso-part2-NR_UK.pdf